Move FM Global News

BARCELONA/MADRID, Spain: With another record-breaking tourist season underway, thousands of residents across southern Europe marched through their cities over the weekend to protest the rising tide of overtourism.

In Barcelona, demonstrators flooded the streets with placards, chants, water pistols, and colored smoke to voice their frustration with a tourism model they say is displacing locals and eroding neighborhood life.

“Your holidays, my misery,” they chanted in the Catalan capital, where banners read “mass tourism kills the city” and “their greed brings us ruin.”

The protest was part of a coordinated action under the SET alliance – Sud d’Europa contra la Turistització, or “Southern Europe against Overtourism” – which included groups from Portugal and Italy. Activists argue that unchecked tourism is driving up housing prices and pushing longtime residents out of their communities.

Barcelona, home to 1.6 million people, welcomed 26 million tourists last year. Over the weekend, city authorities said roughly 600 protesters participated, sticking up anti-tourism messages like “Neighbourhood self-defense, tourists go home” on storefronts and hotels. Outside one hotel, a worker confronted protesters, saying he was “only working” and not the business owner.

Similar protests erupted in Spanish cities such as Ibiza, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastian, and Granada. In Italy, demonstrations were held in Venice, Genoa, Milan, Naples, and Palermo, where residents are opposing two new hotel projects that are expected to add 1,500 tourist beds.

Barcelona’s city government announced last year that it would ban short-term tourist rentals by 2028 to restore residents’ livability.

“I’m very tired of being a nuisance in my own city,” said Eva Vilaseca, 38, who joined the protest in Barcelona. “The solution is to propose a radical decrease in the number of tourists… and bet on another economic model.”

Tourism remains a powerful economic force: international travel spending in Europe is forecast to jump 11 percent this year to US$838 billion, with Spain and France among the biggest beneficiaries.

A protest was organized in Lisbon, Portugal, over the weekend.